Modern Warfare 3 doesn’t want to ’emphasise’ sniping

Sledgehammer Games co-founder Michael Condrey has explained the studio’s approach to sniping in Modern Warfare 3 by emphasising the differences in long-range gunplay with EA’s rival shooter Battlefield 3.

“Unlike other games, where you’re going to be sniped from across the map by a guy you can’t even see,” he said in an interview with Official Xbox Magazine, “and then respawn and you’ve got to run for five minutes to get back to the battle, right? That’s not the Modern Warfare 3 method. This is about getting you in the action, you’re pulling the trigger fast, you know what I mean? That’s the essence of it.”

Condrey also explains in the interview that there are opportunities for sniping in Modern Warfare 3, but that players who want to go prone in one location and sit there for an entire match might have a harder time on their hands.

“I think that the person who plays the sniper on a team can have a ton of fun, but one of the biggest criticisms you always hear is about campers, right? We don’t want to emphasise that dynamic so much that the other people in that engagement aren’t having fun,” he said.

“We have less verticality in our maps, there are less camping points. And so the challenge for snipers is to hang back on the perimeter or the periphery and pick people off – the maps aren’t set up to really capitalise on that, by intention.

“There are weapon proficiencies for snipers, like there are weapon proficiencies for every class, that can allow you to do cool things – there’s Focus, for example, which gives you less sway. So there are ways to improve as a sniper, but I think it’s more tuned and more balanced than it’s ever been before.”

VideoGamer.com awarded the game a 9/10 in its Modern Warfare 3 review.